[Boatanchors] Speaking of BPL

[Glen Zook]

The Washington Post article actually originated with
the Dallas Morning News.

Oncor is the electric distribution company for TXU
(since electric utilities were "deregulated" in Texas
certain facets of the industry are still regulated and
therefore they have different company names for
different functions).  Frankly, the BPL that TXU was
implementing was actually pretty amateur radio
"friendy".  The frequencies chosen were well outside
of all of the amateur radio bands (the system was
designed by Motorola) and, to my knowledge there have
not been any problems with the BPL installed in the
Dallas, Texas, area.  However, I am still very happy
that Oncor dropped the plans for widespread BPL
because of the potential for interference at a later
date.

Now Oncor/TXU only covers slightly less than half the
State of Texas.  Other electric companies including
Houston Power and Light, El Paso Electric, and several
other large electric companies are not owned by TXU
and are still involved BPL.  TXU covers most of the
northern portion of the state down to the northern
most sections of Austin out to the New Mexico state
line.  There are some large "holes" around Abilene and
the coverage does not go down as far as ElPaso.

I spent 10 years with TXU until they eliminated the
telecommunications department in the first half of
1999.

Glen, K9STH
Richardson, Texas (northern suburb of Dallas)


--- "Harry Vaught, KT4AE" <kt4ae at bellsouth.net> wrote:

Kim Komando's newsletter yesterday pointed to a
Washington Post article (registration required) which
said that BPL in Texas was being shut down.  The
equipment is being taken over by a utility provider
(Oncor) who will use it for monitoring of the
electrical grid.

A couple of quotes:

"Our business is delivering electricity, not being an
Internet provider or a television provider," said
Oncor spokesman Chris Schein.

" Other BPL trials have met with similar fates, though
a few are still in operation. Compared to coaxial
cables and copper phone lines, power lines are poor
conduits for data. Some deployments also met fierce
legal resistance from ham radio operators, who found
that BPL created radio interference."









Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


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